Faded and Gone
by Moonphase
Summary: Slight AU: Misa Amanes thoughts ten years after Light suceeds as Kira and is ruler of the world.


**A/N- This is an AU (Alternative Universe) in which Light actually succeeds in becoming Kira. However, this is a focus on the irrepressible Misa Amane and her thoughts.** Uninteresting fact: **I wrote this whilst listening to Dido's 'Hunter'.**

**Warnings: suicidal thoughts and sex are mentioned. (Re- re-edited for spelling errors.)**

Misa Amane sat still, her lips pinched and her hands gripped to the steering wheel.

It had not been that many years since she had first laid eyes on Light. But so much had happened in that decade -the rise of Kira, the New World, the Great War, the political, legal and religious revolution. And the entire time, she supported and worshipped him unequivocally. In her mind, it was only fair that she should become his goddess. After all, she had been his first disciple, his first serious girlfriend and had been the second Kira (well, at least for a time.)

However, things had not turned out that way. Early into the game, Misa had had competition and completely lost to it. While she was left in the shadows, Mikami and Takada had taken their side by Light serving as the left and right side of god. Together they made a trinity: the god, the goddess and the high priest.

For so many years she forgave Light every day. The gift of the occasional intimacy made up for all the hurt, all the betrayal, all the pain. But...slowly as the years had rolled on and an early death approached, Misa began to _feel_ older. She remembered the first night, when Light rolled off her, sighing as if finally completing a tiresome chore and promptly fell asleep beside her. Before she would have snuggled up beside him, feeling small and safe beside his large, muscled body, gazing up a beautiful face reserved for Renaissance Angels and Grecian gods only. But that night was different; Misa had remained lying on her back and stared up at the ceiling, feeling unfulfilled, disappointed and most shockingly, _bored_.

Misa never felt bored. From early childhood Misa's personality was strong and forceful enough to make things happen. If she wanted something, she would go and out and get it, no matter what. She created her own enjoyment. How else would a poor, unfortunate orphan like herself have dragged herself out of her misery and out of the gutter and made it in the competitive and aggressive world of modelling and show business? Through the smiles and the giggles, Misa had worked damn hard.

And where Light was concerned, there was no exception.

She worked hard on becoming his girlfriend, worked hard on being a good Kira (though often struggling to keep up with L and Light; she was only a normal girl after all...) She had worked her hardest, however, on their relationship. For years Misa dedicated her being to making Light happy. She tried to convince herself that she was happy also; telling herself over and over that the bits of love she occasionally received were worth the pain, the struggle the...humiliations that Light dished regularly out. But that night, Misa stopped working hard. She stopped trying all together.

Misa had not given into a catatonic state of helplessness, rather her aspirations were no longer being Light's one and only true love. Misa now wanted to be happy-truly happy. She had been once, long ago. Surely she could get back to that state?

What she remembered from that time was this; it had been void of Light Yagami.

After much thought, she had approached Light asking to be let free of their 'relationship' (she now thought of the term with wry amusement- it seemed age had made her more cynical.) For the longest time, Light simply ignored her or brushed her off. She had wondered if really, he _did_ love her and did not want her to go and when she had been twenty-two or twenty-three years old, that would have meant something. Fortunately (or unfortunately) after years of emotional abuse, that seemed ridiculous and even if it were true, she no longer cared. Misa hounded Light with her usual fervour and single mindedness until he finally told her, out rightly, that she could not leave him. Or at least, she would never be free from his direct commands. She knew too much, she was too stupid and he had no faith that she would keep the Death Notes a state secret. Misa had begged and pleaded and demanded, but for the first time, her doggedness had no effect; Light was too powerful and too unaffected by her.

Life became pretty tough after that. Now free from his role of boyfriend, Light actively ignored Misa. At the least, he offered her no love. Light was made of stone. Whilst he was a 'living god,' he seemed as distant and silent as any of the old ones Misa had known. Despite the fact that the world had not really improved (crime had simply gone deeper underground, and bribery and corruption in the justice system more rampant) and his enemies, like cockroaches, never truly died out, Light became increasingly arrogant and cruel. Their occasional conversations were stagnant and awkward. Light had never made much effort and Misa had finally run out of things to say. The relationship Light had with Takada was relatively equal, but at least they could talk of media strategies together. Light and Misa had nothing in common.

She even mourned the relationship. Misa had lost her faith, both in her religion and in her romance. They were not wrong, no, it was worse than that, they had never even existed.

She felt bereaved.

However, like the rest of mankind when cursed with adulthood, Misa hardened emotionally. Shortly after all her epiphanies and when all the dramatics faded down like dying embers, Misa actually began to dislike Light. She could not even feel jealous of Takada anymore; Misa simply wanted Out.

Now in her mid thirties, she still looked pretty good; she was still slim (partially thanks to the absence of children, something Misa did not feel happy over,)her hair was still glossy and long, her face still relatively youthful...however, she had tired and old eyes. These revealed how Misa truly felt. Every day her early death came closer, how many years had she sacrificed for the Shinigami eyes? And all for Light?

Misa wanted to travel; she wanted to see the sunrise on the peak of a mountain and set on the white beach in the Caribbean; she wanted to see the birds of paradise and bathe under a waterfall; she wanted to eat alone for the first time in a classy French restaurant, her company being a good book and self confidence; she wanted to spend a holiday becoming re-acquainted with her modelling friends (whom she had neglected in favour of being around Light.) Were these things so much for a 'god' to give a dying woman?

It seemed so.

Misa now sat in her car, looking at the house in front of her. She needed to get out and go in. She knew exactly what would happen. The guards would open the front door and greet her. Inside, Light would be sitting silently in his office; he would look at her on arrival, before silently going back to work. Takada would be on the television, selling the steadily unbelieving and cynical world propaganda that all crime had ended, when, in fact, the underworld was flourishing. She would pass by the kitchen, ignoring Ryuuk guzzling his never ending wealth of apples.

She would go to her little room, kick off her shoes and lie on her bed. She would reminisce about Rem and all the ways that she could have changed her fate. She would take a bath and get ready for bed. Light would maybe sneak into her room for fast and unsatisfying sex, done only to help him relieve tension; done to let him know that, even if everything else was spiralling out of control, he could still control this miserable wretch.

Misa looked at herself in the car mirror. There was a massive lake at the back of the house. She could take this car and drive it straight into the icy water.

A fitting symbol for her 'epic romance', no?

It would be one last act of control; to defy the Death Note, which she now hated, and take things into her own hands...But of course, Light could have written this scenario in the Death Note...

Misa gripped the wheel; her lips tightly pinched together, her eyes aged.

She would have to make the choice at some point tonight.


End file.
